Short-handed Huskies ready this time

Published: December 20, 2000 12:00 AM

It was hard for Northwestern fans to find any positives when leading scorer Beth Gortner went down in a heap, clutching her ankle, during last week's loss to Chippewa.

Those fears were realized when the Huskies, with Gortner and her 15.7 points per game watching from the bench, were on the wrong end of a 20-point blowout against Smithville last Saturday.

Northwestern picked up the pieces Tuesday evening, though, and responded with a solid all-around effort, as the Huskies stepped out the Wayne County Athletic League and overwhelmed Central Christian 47-27.

Instead of lamenting Gortner's absence for a second straight game, the Huskies decided to use her injury as a chance to discover what they were made of.

"As much as we miss Beth and her leadership and all the other things she brings to our team, we discussed it being one of those blessing in disguise deals," Northwestern coach Dennis Mendenhall said. "It does give us a chance to see some of the other kids play and see who is willing to step up and fill that void. They all did that tonight, especially on the defensive end. Everybody we put in the game came ready to play defense."

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It's doubtful the Huskies really needed their leading scorer to up their record to 4-3. Instead, they used some hot second-half shooting to blow open a 19-14 halftime lead and send Central to its fifth loss in seven outings this season.

Northwestern connected on eight 3-pointers for the game, with five of those coming in the decisive final two quarters when the Huskies outscored Central 28-13. Junior Kameron Rice drilled a pair in the third quarter, while Erin Mowrer contributed her third trey of the evening during an 18-6 spree. Katie Knight came off Mendenhall's bench to add another 3, and fellow sub Sara Cottrel added a pair of field goals during the third.

Northwestern hit nine of its first 15 shots in the second half and took its biggest lead of the night when Kristin Cutter's second 3-pointer made it 40-20 early in the final quarter.

"No question that was the most consistent 16 minutes we've put together this season," said Mendenhall of a second half that saw his team shoot 10-of-19 from the floor. "We talked about expanding the lead at half, about realizing that we wanted to come out in the third quarter and take control of the game. Once we got some interior passing going, it forced them to start changing their defense a little and that opened some things up for us on the outside.

"We came out ready to go and shot the ball extremely well."

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While Cutter was the lone Husky in double figures with 10 points, Northwestern got nine points from Mowrer and Cottrel, while Rice and Ashley Haley each chipped in with six.

"We got the young kids into the game tonight and they all did great job," Mendenhall said. "They managed to hold the lead and even expand it a little."

In contrast, Central's offense consisted of Laura Kister and little else. Kister collected five of the visitors eight field goals and finished with 18 points. Only two other players, Liz Zaleski (7 points) and Rachel Miller (2) marked for Central.

"Laura deserves a lot of credit because it was quite apparent that there was only one person able or capable of doing any scoring tonight," Central coach Bob Raber said. "Part of it is we don't have anyone who was a scorer last year and who is bringing an offensive mentality to the floor a lot of nights."

Although his team was still within hailing distance of the Huskies at half, Raber had no answers for the hosts' second-half onslaught from beyond the arc.

"We still were in the game at halftime. Mentally we should've been thrilled, but they opened it up in the third quarter and you saw what happened," Raber said. "We couldn't match up with them man-to-man, so we had to hope they didn't shoot the ball that well from the outside.

"Those 3s weren't just from behind the line. They were from the wings and all of them were at least a couple feet behind the line. They were knocking down 3s and we couldn't make a layup."